Fable: Blood of Heroes (28 page)

“Sure.”

“Oh, good.” Winter pointed. “Do me a favour and bring that cauldron down here. I’d like to have a word with Yog.”

Inga’s sword knocked another skeleton back, then she raised her shield to the sky. A glowing chain shot upwards to wrap around Yog’s cauldron. Like a fisherman fighting a shark, Inga slowly hauled the cauldron lower. Winter half expected to see Inga tossed through the air, but though her boots slid through the mud, Bulwark kept her grounded.

“That’s it.” Inga’s neck muscles were taut as steel. “That’s all I can give you.”

The cauldron was still a good ten feet overhead. Winter spun. “Tipple, give a lass a boost?”

He grinned and laced his hands together. Winter put one foot on the makeshift platform, grabbed his head for balance, and braced herself.

“Punch her lights out for me,” Tipple said, and tossed her skyward.

Winter caught the lip of the cauldron and reached for Yog. Cold sprayed from her fingers, but Yog grabbed her wrist and squeezed. She was as strong as an ogre.

The cauldron tore free of Bulwark’s magic and shot skyward. Yog leaned out and twisted her other hand into Winter’s shirt. Winter tried to hold on to the cauldron, but Yog jerked her loose.

“Pathetic,” Yog taunted her. “Will it break your friends to see you dashed against the rocks, do you think? Perhaps your death will persuade one of them to accept a place as my Rider. That one, Glory, has potential. I could see her leading my assault on Brightlodge.”

“Oh, sure. Because Glory is
such
a follower.” Winter rolled her eyes.

“It doesn’t matter. They will all burn. If they won’t serve me in life, I’ll feed on their flesh and let their bones serve me in death. But first …”

She bared her teeth. Gleaming scratches cut through the tarnished iron surface where she had bitten into the stone doll that was once her husband. She pulled Winter closer.

Winter gathered the last of her Will and focused it into the tip of one finger, a finger she touched to Yog’s exposed iron teeth. Pain blinded her, but she felt the cold spreading through the metal and into Yog’s tongue and cheeks, locking the jaw in place. A whimper escaped Yog’s throat, then that too died.

Winter caught the edge of the cauldron with one hand as she fell. Though her muscles screamed, she dragged her other arm over the edge. The lip dug painfully into her armpit as she reached out to grab Yog’s leg. Ice spread over the ragged clothing and down to the bottom of the cauldron.

It would be so easy to let go. Every part of her body was exhausted. Her hands burned with the effort of holding on.

Yog’s face was frozen into a snarl. Even her eyes were frosted over. The cold would have killed anyone else. Winter didn’t know how long it would stop Yog.

She pulled herself higher. She hooked one leg over the edge and tumbled into the cauldron. “How do you steer this thing?”

Aside from a few broken pieces of Kas, the cauldron’s only contents were an old, wooden club about the length of Winter’s leg. She grabbed it by one end and the cauldron lurched to the side.

Winter let out a whoop, her pains momentarily forgotten as she flew through the air. Flaming skulls raced to intercept her, but she ducked and let the cauldron batter through them.

She yanked the end of the club to the left, jerking the cauldron sideways. “You might want to get away from that hut!”

As the Heroes scattered, she looped the cauldron around and flew higher, climbing towards the clouds until her friends were indistinguishable specks on the ground below.

Ice cracked. Yog grabbed Winter’s wrist.

“Ah, well. Looks like the ride is over.” Winter slammed the club downwards.

Her stomach lurched as the cauldron began to fall—no, to
fly
at the ground below. She concentrated her Will on her own body, turning her skin to ice. She nudged the club to one side, lining it up with the hut, then blew every last bit of power she had over Yog. It wasn’t much, but if it held her a few seconds longer … 

Her ice-slick arm slipped from Yog’s grip, and she jumped from the cauldron. It continued to accelerate, like an iron boulder flung from the world’s most powerful catapult.

The hut exploded. In the cloud of dirt and wood, Winter couldn’t see what had happened to Yog, but it couldn’t have been pretty.

The ground rushed to meet her, then a glowing shield bumped hard against her side. She tried to cling to Bulwark’s projection. Her grip gave way, and the shield shifted into an enormous hand, wrapping around her body and guiding her down.

She crashed hard into Inga, and the two of them toppled to the ground.

“Winter? Can you hear me?” That was Sterling’s voice. “Why is she laughing?”

Winter turned to look at him. “That was
fun
!” She lay back, remembering the wind roaring past. Everything hurt, and her head felt like an ice tiger had escaped inside her skull, but she didn’t care. “If Yog had offered to let me fly around in her cauldron, I’d have signed up to be a Rider right then.”

Glory sniffed. “Have you ever come up with a plan that
didn’t
involve almost getting yourself killed?”

“Sure,” said Winter. “But they’re boring.”

A hunched figure raced towards them. Inga raised her weapon, then laughed. Blue the redcap circled them all, spinning and dancing and laughing. “Dead! Dead and broken and dead!”

“I’d better check to make sure,” said Shroud.

“Looks like her bony friends all collapsed when the cauldron hit the rocks.” Tipple used a slender bone to scratch between his shoulder blades. “I think the redcap’s right. Yog’s done for.”

“Never assume.” Shroud walked purposefully towards the now-flattened cauldron, which sat in the middle of a crater. “Ah, yes. She’s quite dead. The deadest I’ve seen in quite some time.” He pulled a knife and tossed it down, presumably into the body.

“What’d you do that for?” asked Tipple.

“Just making sure.”

“What do we do with him?” Sterling asked, cocking his head towards Blue.

“Do?” Blue scowled. “Blue helped. Saved stupid Heroes!”

“The little bugger also peopled those poisons—he poisoned those people in Brightlodge,” said Tipple.

“As Heroes of Albion, our duty is clear,” said Sterling. “Blue must be brought to Brightlodge to face the consequences of his actions.”

“But we said—,” Winter started.

“You offered him freedom. I merely promised him the chance to help bring his tormentor to justice.” Sterling turned to Blue. “You’ve committed numerous crimes against the people of Brightlodge. As a Hero of Albion, I cannot in good faith ignore those actions. But your actions today
will
be taken into consideration.”

“That’s not fair,” said Inga. “You can’t judge him for what he did when he was enslaved to Yog.”

“Judge
this,
” Blue crowed, and kicked Sterling square in the groin. Sterling doubled over. Tipple roared with laughter. Glory smirked.

Leech just shook his head and said, “I’m not healing that.”

Blue sprinted towards the woods and disappeared. Nobody seemed inclined to pursue him.

Winter smiled and closed her eyes, enjoying the cool of the rocks and dirt, and listened to the laughter and outrage of her fellow Heroes.

CHAPTER 24

TIPPLE

J
eremiah Tipple slammed his mug down on the bar. “And that, my friends, is how we rid Albion of a flying cannibal witch and her multitude of minstrous mon—of monstrous minions.”

“That’s total chicken crap,” said the man to his right, who had been listening raptly for the past hour. He was one of several people who had been buying Tipple drinks all night long. “The greencaps, sure. We all saw them. But an old witch flying around in a cauldron, eating stone dolls? Pah.”

“You callin’ me a liar?” Tipple pointed to the other Heroes gathered around a nearby table. “Ask any of that lot. They’ll tell you.”

“What’s going to happen to the refugees from Grayrock?” asked the woman pressed comfortably close to Tipple’s left side.

“Not much left of that place to go back to,” he admitted, sliding one arm around her waist. “The rain last week took out another chunk of the dam. Soon there won’t be anything left but the river. The survivors seem to be settling into Brightlodge, though. I hear one of them got caught trying to fix the chicken races just last night.”

“I never even heard of a town called Grayrock,” said the first man.

Tipple laughed and clapped him on the back, just hard enough to remind him who he was challenging. “When’s the last time you set foot outside Brightlodge, friend?”

“Leave Brightlodge?” He stared, as horrified as if Tipple had asked permission to set him on fire. “Do you know the kind of things that live in those woods?”

“That’s all well and good,” said another woman. “But Grayrock fell more than a week ago. What about the rest of Albion’s troubles? The White Lady’s still out there, you know. Not to mention trolls, balverines, hollow men, and that greencap dog that keeps stealing scraps from the butcher. When are you Heroes going to take care of all that?”

“Leech’s been working to fix the remaining greencaps. Those who are still alive.” Tipple didn’t understand half of what Leech was doing, but he trusted the man’s cleverness. It sounded like he’d worked out most of the ingredients in Yog’s cure. “As for the rest, don’t you worry. We’ll be setting out first thing in the morning. Why d’you think I’m drinking tonight?”

That met with a roar of approval.

“What happened to Ben and his sister Greta?” asked another voice.

Tipple looked pointedly at his empty mug. Moments later, someone swapped it out for a full one. He grinned and nodded in thanks. “Back with their family, safe and sound. Greta wants to go into the wood-carving business. Turns out she has a knack for it, and Ben had an idea for a line of dolls designed like Heroes.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wooden doll. The painting was a bit uneven, and there was an unsightly knot on the face that looked like a nasty black eye, but it was as solid a toy as any. “By month’s end, you’ll all be able to buy your own miniatau—minatiu—your own Tiny Tipple!”

He took another draught of ale, then looked around the Cock and Bard. Some of his fellow Heroes had retired for the night. Sterling and Winter were dancing to the tunes of an inebriated fiddler. From the way Sterling was jumping and kicking his heels, Blue’s kick hadn’t done him any lasting harm.

Shroud sat in a corner by the door, his back to the wall. He’d disappeared for several days after they returned, saying it was “Conclave business,” but had returned to Wendleglass Hall as determined as ever to explore Albion and find new and interesting ways of killing its inhabitants. He’d spent the evening diagramming Yog’s death and trying to calculate just how fast she’d been going when she hit the hut.

Leech was talking to a man who looked faintly ill. Knowing Leech, he was probably describing the anatomical effects of freezing a witch’s head from the inside out, or talking about the best way to remove the heart of a still-living balverine.

“’Scuse me.” Tipple grabbed another mug and made his way towards Leech’s table. His guesses had been good, but not quite correct. Leech was deep into a lecture about the cranial structure of ogre and redcap skulls.

Tipple grabbed Leech in a one-armed hug. “You need another drink, my friend!”

Leech’s captive audience took that opportunity to make a break for it. He stopped only to whisper to Tipple, “Get away while you can. This fellow’s not right in the head.”

Tipple’s good cheer vanished. He set down his mug, caught the man by the collar, and hoisted him into the air. “I’ll give you the count of one to apologise. Leech took me into his home when I had redcap poison eating away at my guts. He’s faced redcaps and smugglers and flaming skeletons and nightmares you can’t imagine. You should be grateful he’s more tolerant of idiots than I am.”

Tipple grabbed the man’s belt with his left hand and lifted him overhead, fully prepared to toss him headfirst out the door.

“Jeremiah, stop.” Leech folded his arms. “Put him down.”

Tipple grimaced, but dropped the man, who fled into the street.

“How’s your gut feeling?”

Tipple settled into the chair beside Leech. “Full to bursting, and all the better for it.”

Leech grinned and tapped his mug to Tipple’s. “Did I tell you what I learned about redcap brains? They look like ours, all pale and wrinkly, but the texture is very different. More gelatinous, with a thicker skin. Slide a nail into ’em and they just kind of ooze around the metal like soft cheese. There’s damage, but significantly less than you’d get with yours or mine.”

Tipple peered into his mug and wondered if he should order another. He figured he’d need it by the time this conversation was through. “Forget redcaps. What can you tell me about balverines. They’re saying some idiot tried to make a zoo of the things. Naturally, they’ve escaped and started killing everything in sight. There are even rumours of hybrids.”

Leech’s face lit up. “The balverines are crossbreeding?” He leaned in, his drink forgotten. “I assume you know the basics of balverine anatomy. Teeth, claws, fur, and so on. What really distinguishes them from other predators are their more human traits. Take the hip bones, for example. They’re shaped like those of a human, allowing balverines to walk and fight on two legs.”

Tipple chuckled and stretched out to listen, crossing his feet on an unoccupied chair to his right. He doubted he’d remember a quarter of what Leech was telling him come morning, but that didn’t matter. They’d beaten Yog, protected Brightlodge, and saved … well, most of the people from Grayrock, at any rate. And Tipple had stories enough to keep people paying his tab for weeks.

Tonight was for celebrating. Tomorrow he would head out with his friends and do it all over again.

It was the life of a Hero, and Jeremiah Tipple wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

J
IM
C. H
INES
made his professional debut in 1998 with “Blade of the Bunny,” an award-winning story that appeared in
Writers of the Future XV.
Since then, his short fiction has been featured in more than fifty magazines and anthologies. He’s written ten books, including
Libriomancer, The Stepsister Scheme,
and the humorous Goblin Quest series. He promises that no chickens were harmed in the making of this book.

www.jimchines.com

Facebook.com/jimhines

@jimchines